Maddie Gets a Makeover

Last week during the trip to the mountains, I noticed that the stock bar tape on Maddie was a little loose and would occasionally slide around exposing the bare aluminum bars. This was a convenient excuse to add a little more color to the bike instead of the boring black that came stock. When I saw that Speedgoat was having a sale on trainers last week, I decided to take advantage of the savings and get some new tape while the shipping was free. I had a hard time deciding which color to pick, with my favorites being white and pink. I thought that the white would go well with the frame and compliment the white cages well. On the other hand, I do seem to like ugly bikes and putting pink tape on a bike with red accents definitely fits the bill. I ended up getting the white despite the undeniable fact that pink bike parts are awesome. The UPS man showed up today with my order so Madeline is now all dolled up with her new look.



I haven't really ridden the trainer much but it seems to be a quality item. I may end up getting some kind of mat to help dampen some of the vibrations so I don't disturb the neighbors.

I went on a ride with Mikey last week and came to a pretty scary realization. I couldn't be happier with my current bikes. I like them so much that I don't think that I really need another bike. In fact, I could get rid of the Ziggurat and never miss it. Both of my main bikes, Michaelangelo and Madeline, are really sweet rides and a ton of fun. I used to be able to spend hours dreaming over my next bike but why bother anymore. Even when I came up with this weeks bad idea that I will never follow through with, trying a cross race, I couldn't come close to justifying a new cross bike. The 1x1 will take 700c wheels with tons of room to spare so why not just throw some drops on that. Sure it will have to be a singlespeed but that isn't really a problem. Hopefully I will be able to talk myself into a custom frame or something sometime down the road. For now, I will just ride what I have.

Disco Anson in 1.5 weeks. If you are riding, bring your A game. Maddie and I will be arriving in style for the 50 mile ride. Sorry Ethan, no mountains on this ride so it will be ruled by the king of the valleys. Unfortunately, I have no idea who or what that is.

Heading for the Hills

Ethan and I headed up towards Boone this weekend to do some mountain riding. He found this route and we decided that it would be a good ride for us since the distance was reasonable and it had some nice climbs. The first ten miles or so had a good amount of traffic but after that things died down and the route proved to be very enjoyable. There were three tough climbs and one more that was a little more gradual. Before this ride, my confidence on the bike was at an all time high. I have been riding singlespeed in the dirt for a couple of months, which automatically makes me better that people with gears, a strong showing when Ethan came to town, and being able to blow past the retirees at Umstead have fooled me into thinking that I am a pretty good climber despite my large climbing-unfriendly size (according to the BMI, my 6'-5" 215lb frame is 5 pounds overweight). Shortly after we hit the first climb on the way up Hwy 194, it was clear that my ability to conquer the Triangle area molehills means nothing for the seemingly never ending mountains that we were going to be riding. The ride up 194 was a nice long sustained climb that I was determined to do without stopping for a rest. I was able to make it to the top and prove to everyone that I am not just a man, but a man's man. We stopped at the top of this climb to catch our breath and down some gels before continuing.

Ethan at the bottom of Hwy. 194

Once we felt rested up we continued the ride through Banner Elk and started our ascent of Beech Mountain, the signature climb of the day. Beech Mountain is best known by cyclists as one of the Lance Armstrong's favorite climbs for training during his cancer comeback. On paper, the climb seems very similar to Old La Honda which I was able to do without much trouble at the beginning of the summer. Beech Mountain is approximately 1400 vertical feet of climbing over about 3.5 miles over compared to Old La Honda which is about 1300 feet over 3.4 miles or so. I was able to ascend Old La Honda in May when I didn't even have a road bike so I figured that now that I have been a roadie for almost a month I would be able to make this Mountain my Beech. I have never been more wrong in my life. Beech Mountain killed me. I had to stop several times on the way to rest and catch my breath. There were times when I could barely find the power to turn the pedals over despite being in my lowest gear and out of the saddle. I think that this is due to a couple of things; wearing myself out climbing 194 and the steeper gearing of the standard double crankset compared to the triple on the bike I rode in California. I also put a lot of the blame on Bush.

Ethan Along the Side of Beech Mtn.

One thing that I really enjoyed during this climb were the friendly motorists. Several cars passed me during the ascent and gave some shouts of encouragement as I limped to the top. I have had plenty of rednecks shout at me before but this was the first time anyone ever yelled something positive. Once I got to the top I regrouped with Ethan, who took off on his own on the way up, and we decided that a nice long rest with some lunch was in order. One of the reasons I think I struggled more than he did on the climb is the ~50lb difference in body weight. He already had the top of the mountain scouted out when I arrived and suggested that I eat a pizza when I arrived so he could maintain his advantage. We stopped at Brick Oven Pizzeria which was right at the top of the climb and split an awesome pizza. It would have been really good at any time but after that climb it tasted like it had been sent down from the heavens and really hit the spot. The staff at the restaurant was super friendly and didn't mind that we brought our bikes inside and walked around in our socks. Thanks guys.

Maddie at the Top of Beech Mtn.

After our mountain top feed session, we continued the ride with the descent of Beech Mountain. Earlier in the day the temperatures were perfect, but it was nearly 4:00 by the time we left the pizzeria and it had cooled down enough that we needed arm warmers. Once down the mountain we headed through Banner Elk and over to Hickory Nut Gap Road. This road is the gradual climb that I mentioned earlier and ended up being one of the more enjoyable stretches of the ride. It had some nice scenery and a decent bit of elevation change, but it was spread out enough that it didn't kill you on the way up. After this road, we headed past Linville and started the last climb of the day. It was another tough one that was about two miles long and some fairly steep grades. It was nothing like Beech Mtn. but provided a real challenge this late in the ride. We crested this climb at the entrance to Grandfather Mountain, which towers above all of the surrounding landscape. Once past this hill we finished the ride with a nice long stroll down Hwy. 221. This road was really pretty and had a lot of cool things like waterfalls and interesting rock formations by the side of the road. I would have liked to have stopped more for some photos but we were in a bit of a race against the clock to get back to the car before dark. Fortunately, this stretch of road was almost all descending or flat and we were able to outrun some of the cars behind us during the descents. We rolled back into Blowing Rock with only about half an hour of daylight left and a little over 60 miles for the day. Neither of us have the technology to track our climbing totals but I can believe that it was 6000 ft. like the cue sheet suggests.

In Front of Grandfather Mountian

The ride ended up being a ton of fun and I am excited about a return trip sometime in the future. It was a tough ride with some brutal sections but well worth the trip. I am looking forward to training some more and going back to dominate (or at least ride without stopping to rest) these mountains in the future. A lot of thanks go out to the guys at cyclecarolina.com for the route and to Brick Oven Pizzeria in Beech Mountain for their hospitality. Here are some additional photos from the trip.

A nice view along Hickory Nut Gap Rd.


I smoked this guy up Hwy. 194.


Ethan enjoying some pizza.


The View from a Beech Mountain Switchback.


Ethan in Front of Grandfather Mountain.


Descending Beech Mountain.


Cruising Down a Nice Country Road.


Apparently I Need Longer Armwarmers


The Two of Us at the Continental Divide.


Trying My Best To Smile at the End.
(Also, today proved that the Speedy on my chest is meant sarcastically.)

Naming Names

So the Madone needs a good name. The only good one I can think of is Madeline, which plays off of Madone nicely. Any suggestions?

"Take a Good Look, Because Its the Last Time You'll Be Seeing These"

I got to take the Madone out for a quick spin today after work. I only road for about 15 miles because I don't really know any good road routes and I am planning to do a lot of riding the next couple of days. I really like the bike. It handles well and is a comfortable ride. It is also really stiff and can accelerate about like Ethan's Tarmac, which I like. I am not going to go on too much about the bike because I am kind of disappointed at the moment. Upon arriving home, I went to put the away and noticed a chip in the back of the seat tube. The finish is chipped completely off but I can not tell if there is any damage to the carbon that would compromise the integrity of the frame. I am planning to take it in tomorrow and have a mechanic look at it. I don't know much about carbon frames so it may be fine but it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. Needless to say, I am kind of bummed. Hopefully the only damage is cosmetic. I am not sure what would have caused the chip. It isn't really in a good spot to have a rock kicked up from the tire (unless I was going backwards, which I don't remember doing) and I wasn't riding any really rough roads. For those curious, I did two loops around the bike route that goes by Kent Road which shouldn't have caused any problems. I guess I will see what the deal is tomorrow. Anyway here are some pictures of the bike.

The bike.

Also made in God's Country.

How exotic.

The good stuff, I guess.

An attempt to photograph the damage.

I feel worse than this guy. At least he got a cookie.

It's Here

More to come later. Woot!

New Toy

I haven't done a whole lot of riding lately due to being kind of busy (lazy) lately but I have gotten a few rides in. There isn't a whole lot new to talk about with the bike except that I got a new set of pedals off of eBay that should shave a few grams off of the total weight. Also, the broken cage finally snapped completely off on one of my rides so the bike now has one orange cage and one chrome one which looks kind of lame. In other news, my computer finally broke last night so I went and picked up this new one.


I have never been a big fan of Macs but this new iMac is really sweet. Now that I don't have anything important to do on my computer, like school assignments or work, I don't need to worry about software compatibility. The Apple machines really excel with media management, which is what I will primarily using this computer for. Plus, Apple is known for having a solidly built product which is a welcome relief after the giant peice of cheap plastic crap that was my old Dell. Another attractive quality of the Mac is that Apple is very environmentally friendly, which is something I strongly support. This is prevalent in the new iMac as it is made of easily recyclable materials and, like most (or maybe all) Apple products, it meets Energy Star efficiency regulations. I think my biggest complaint with Apple over the years is that their fans seem to have a really snobby and elitist attitude. Fortunately, I am not like the common Mac user and am not really worried about that happening to me.

I had some reservations about getting a Mac because of some dislikes that I have had in the past using other peoples machines. When I went to the Apple store this past weekend I was glad to see that pretty much all of my concerns have been fixed. Apple has taken a big step into the early '90's by making a mouse that has the ability to right click, unlike the ones that they were producing a couple of years ago. They have also changed the default method of opening of Expose to be be controlled by the mouse buttons instead of moving the mouse to the corner. For the non-Apple users out there, Expose is a feature that will show all of your open windows in a tiled arrangement so you can choose which window you want to view. On other peoples machines that I have used, Expose was opened by moving the mouse to the top left side of the screen, which is where the close and minimize buttons are located making it easy to accidentally activate this feature. There are plenty of articles about the other features of the new iMac so I will not go into those details. Instead, here are a few more pictures of this sleek machine.

One Week Later

Saturday marks the one week anniversary of my first ride with Girl Michaelangelo so I decided to go out riding the past couple of days to celebrate. I rode Harris Lake after work yesterday and felt really good on the bike. I took the hills easier than last week and have shaken off some of the rust. I am starting to feel pretty comfortable on the bike but I am still not completely back to where I was before the Gennie tragedy. I still make a lot of little mistakes, the most common being that I try to keep pedaling on my way over obstacles and end up hitting them with my pedal. It is possible that these crankarms are longer than the ones on the Fisher but I suspect that it is just bad technique. I also didn't wreck yesterday which is an improvement over last weeks ride. There was one point where I tried to go over a log and hit my chainring on the log pretty badly but I don't consider this a wreck because I never hit the ground. I thought that I would be able to clear it as I approached but the log was on a slight downhill and the lower ground on the other side skewed my judgment a bit. As I went over the ring hit and stopped the bike completely as I went over the bars and running down the hill. I was impressed that the collision didn't seem to phase the ring or the chain. Excellent work Salsa and Sram respectively. At the end of the day I had done about 14.5 miles, a pretty good day considering the heat.

Today I went out to Crabtree to ride the trails out there. I did one loop around Crabtree and although I felt good on the bike, the trails were pretty boring. I was hoping that since I haven't ridden these trails regularly in six months or more that they would be more fun on the new bike but I am already bored with them on my second trip out there. I will still ride them occasionally and go out there with group rides but I probably will not go out there on a regular basis. One exciting moment on these trails came when I passed the 50 mile mark for this bike on my computer. I figured that this was a small mile stone so when the odometer rolled over to 50.0 I stopped to collect a small nearby stone to keep as the 50 mile milestone stone. Please note that this stone is purely ceremonial and that there have been several other miles on the bike not recorded on the computer. I decided that since I came out here and went through the trouble of getting ready to ride that I should go spin through Umstead for a while to get some miles in for fitness. I ended up riding all of the trails in Umstead that are open to bikes for a total of about 24.5 miles of fireroads and roughly 5.5 miles of trail, for a grand total 30 miles worth of riding today. I really enjoyed the ride through Umstead and it was a good way to show off the new bike. When people see someone as goofy looking as I am come riding down the trail on a bike that just rolled out of a Ninja Turtles movie with a giant Reeses Cup jersey, they know that I mean serious business. The bike handled the fireroads of Umstead pretty well. I was worried about some of the longer hills on a singlespeed but I was able to make them all. There were some sections that tested out my climbing abilites and I may use this as a training route before my next attempt at Old La Honda. The bike tops out at about 15 mph on flat ground with the current gearing but I was able to test out the top speed on a long straight downhill. I think the bike topped out at around 34 mph or so with me doing my best Linus-Gerdemann-descending-Col-de-la-Colombière impression on the way down.

The 50 mile milestone stone.

Todays ride also brought about the first casualty of the new bike. I noticed at one point during the ride that one of my water bottles was shaking a lot and upon further inspection I discovered that the cage has broken on one side. A lot of times I will use a broken part as an excuse to replace it with something better. This is not one of those cases. I tried to zip tie the cage back together but it looks like the other side is close to breaking as well. I am not sure if I will be able to salvage this one. This is a little disappointing because these were the only orange cages that I could find anywhere but I can always get some in another color and paint them myself.

The broken cage

I am starting to think that I may be the only one who really likes the green and orange color scheme. I took the bike to work with me Friday and while chatting with a coworker who saw my helmet sitting at my cube, I mentioned that I brought my bike with me and was planning on riding after work. His only response was "Its not the green one is it?". I guess its ok as long as I like it.

The Maiden Voyage

Well I finally got out for a ride today on the new bike. Overall, it went pretty well. I went to Harris Lake to ride and did all of the trails once plus an extra trip through the beginner and intermediate trails for a photo op. In the end I did 11.33 miles with an average speed of 8.7 mph. The photo op ride was a pretty casual pace and I also had to do szome backtracking at one point to recover a water bottle that I dropped, which dropped my speed some. All things considered, it was just as fast as I would have been on a geared bike. Here are some observations from the ride.

The Good
The Feel of the Bike - I was worried that the rigid fork might be a little harsh on the trail but it turns out that it really wasn't any worse than Gennie. The steel frame and carbon bars did a good job of dampening out trail buzz and making for a pretty smooth ride. There were a couple of bigger roots that were a jolt but the cheap fork on the Fisher wasn't that much smoother than this rigid setup. I didn't take the bike off of any drops or sweet jumps, which is probable where I will really feel the lack of suspension.

The Ride - There wasn't anything really special about the feel of the bike or the geometry except that it rides like a bike. It isn't anything revolutionary, but the bike went where I wanted when I wanted it to. The handling isn't sluggish or twitchy, just fun.

The Gears - I was worried that 34-18 might be a little steep to start out with but I cleared almost every hill out there. The only time I had to get off and walk was the big hill in the double black diamond section, which I would rarely clean on a geared bike. The big whoop-de-doo just after this hill almost stopped me but I was able to power through it, just not very gracefully. The rest of the time I made it up the climbs without much trouble. I didn't miss the gears at all.

The Weight - The front end of the bike is really light and easy to lift over logs and obstacles. Overall the bike is about 5 or 6 pounds lighter than Gennie was, which makes it a lot easier to take up the hills. The rigid fork helps out there too due to the lighter weight and efficiency compared to suspension.

It Worked - I must not of screwed anything up too badly during the build because I was able to get through the whole ride without breaking anything.

I Didn't Get Hurt - My last trip to Harris Lake ended up with me getting stitches. No such trouble today.

The Saddle - I was a little worried that the saddle wouldn't be very comfortable on the trails seeing as it came off of a road bike but I didn't have any problems. The WTB saddle on the Fisher was really comfortable in regular clothes but was a little too cushy once I started wearing cycling shorts. This saddle doesn't have as much padding as that one but is still plenty comfortable with the chamois in the shorts, at least on this length of ride. It is also very easy to get behind on the downhills, which inspired some confidence.

The Bad
Creaking Bottom Bracket - There is some sort of creaking noise coming from the bottom bracket area. I checked the chainring bolts and they are good and tight so I don't know what is causing it. I think it might just be a crappy BB but those are cheap if I want to replace it sometime.

Snake on a Trail - There was a snake on the trail that I almost ran over. It was just a black snake but I am like a little girl when it comes to snakes. I didn't see it in time to stop so I just rode right past him. He never moved that I saw but I still hammered up that hill as hard as I could.

Chipped Paint - Towards the end of the ride I decided to go ahead and meet the minimum requirement of one wreck per ride. The back wheel washed out from under me while I was going through a turn and when I fell the handlebars swung around and the brake lever hit the top tube leaving a nice scratch in the paint. Oh well, I guess it can't be pretty forever.

Where Was Everyone At - Surprisingly, I only saw a few other people on the trail. Usually I try to avoid the crowds but there should have been more people there to gawk at the beauty of this bike.

I Am Out of Shape - No surprise there.


I am hoping to get back out tomorrow and ride some more, but for now here are some photos of todays ride.

Mikey relaxing by the lake.

From the front.

Close up of the front.


Disc brakes work good.


Pretty good chainline.

The saddle.


The view from the rear.

It's done... for now.

I got the bike built up tonight but it was dark by the time I got finished so the only riding I got was a quick spin around the parking lot. The bike looks really good, even with the red tires that I don't like too much. Not much to tell from the ride today except that I am more upright than my old bike and that the nicer housing makes a huge difference in the stopping power of the brakes. Hopefully I can get a good ride in tomorrow but I may end up seeing the new Bourne movie instead. Either way it should be awesome. Here are some pics of the bike being built and the finished product. I'll give a ride report sometime in the next couple of days.

Just home from the shop.



The King headset looks great.



The complete bike.


From the front. (Pardon the messy room)


The cockpit.

Starting to Build

Unfortuneatly the UPS guy came yesterday when no one was home so I had to wait until today to get the rest of my parts. Everything looks really good, especially the mango colored King headset. The only disappointment of the bike so far is that the tires have a red strip around the bead and I am not sure how good that is going to look with all of the orange accessories, but this is only a minor detail. I may end up getting some larger volume tires as well cushion the ride some anyway so if I do that I can just throw these on the geared bike, which needs new tires as well. Now that everything is here I am starting to build up the bike. I started earlier this evening by spraying the frame down with Framesaver and I am now waiting on it to dry. I already have the water bottle cages mounted on the frame and am hoping to get a couple of more parts on later tonight. The frame needs to sit and dry for a couple of hours but after that I am hoping to get the bottom bracket installed on the frame and get a few of the other parts ready to go on. Then I can throw the rest of the bike together fairly quickly tomorrow and sneak in a test ride before it gets dark. Here is a picture of this thing of beauty waiting to dry.

It's Here

The UPS man stopped by this afternoon and delivered my frame and handlebars, but for some reason the rest of my parts aren't going to come until tomorrow. It looks like this may put me a day or two behind on the building process but I should still be riding by the weekend so it isn't a big deal. The frame looks great. The color is darker than it looked on the internet pictures but it looks really good. Although the frame isn't super light, it is light enough for a steel mountain bike. I expect the bike to be around 24 or 25 pounds when finished. I can't wait to get out on a ride with this thing. I'm going to be busy tomorrow night but hopefully I can find time to spray it down with Framesaver before going to bed. If I do, I should be finished building it by Thursday night and go on a nice long ride Friday afternoon. Here are some pictures for those of you not here, but I must warn you that good lighting and photography skills were absent from this photo shoot.